Posts Tagged ‘vSphere’

I spent some time the last few weekends making various updates and changes to the lab. Too numerous and not all that paramount to go into detail here, with the exception of one issue I did run into. I created a new VMware Horizon pool consisting of Windows 10 Enterprise, Version 1703 (Creators Update). The VM has 4GB RAM and VMware Horizon Agent 7.1.0.5170901 is installed. This is all key information contributing to my new problem which is the Shared Folders feature seems to have stopped functioning.

That is to say, when launching my virtual desktop from the Horizon Client, there are no shared folders or drives being passed through from where I launched the Horizon Client. Furthermore, the Share Folders menu item is completely missing from the blue Horizon Client pulldown menu.

I threw something out on Twitter and received a quick response from a very helpful VMware Developer by the name of Adam Gross (@grossag).

Adam went on to explain that the issue stems from a registry value defining an amount of memory which is less that the amount of RAM configured in the VM.

The registry key is HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\ and the value configured for SvcHostSplitThresholdInKB is 3670016 (380000 Hex). The 3670016 is expressed in KB which comes out to be 3.5GB. The default Windows 10 VM configuration is deployed with 4GB of RAM which is what I did this past weekend. Since 3.5GB is less than 4GB, the bug rears its head.

Adam mentioned the upcoming 7.2 agent will configure this value at 32GB on Windows 10 virtual machines (that’s 33554432 or 2000000 in Hex) and perhaps even larger in the 7.2 version or some future release of the agent because the reality some day is that 32GB won’t be large enough. Adam went on to explain the maximum amount of RAM supported by Windows 10 x64 is 2TB which comes out to be 2147483648 expressed in KB or 80000000 in Hex. Therefore, it is guaranteed safe (at least to avoid this issue) to set the registry value to 80000001 (in Hex) or higher for any vRAM configuration.

To move on, the value needs to be tweaked manually in the registry. I’ll set mine to 32GB as I’ll likely never have a VDI desktop deployed between now and when the 7.2 agent ships and is installed in my lab.

And the result for posterity.

I found a reboot of the Windows 10 VM was required before the registry change made the positive impact I was looking for. After all was said and done, my shared folders came back as did the menu item from the pulldown on the blue Horizon Client pulldown menu. Easy fix for a rather obscure issue. Once again my thanks to Adam Gross for providing the solution.

Last week I was made aware of an issue a customer in the field was having with a data protection strategy using array-based snapshots which were in turn leveraging VMware vSphere snapshots with VSS quiesce of Windows VMs. The problem began after installing VMware Tools version 10.0.0 build-3000743 (reported as version 10240 in the vSphere Web Client) which I believe is the version shipped in ESXI 6.0 Update 1b (reported as version 6.0.0, build 3380124 in the vSphere Web Client).

The issue is that creating a VMware virtual machine snapshot with VSS integration fails. The virtual machine disk configuration is simply two .vmdks on a VMFS-5 datastore but I doubt the symptoms are limited only to that configuration.

The failure message shown in the vSphere Web Client is “Cannot quiesce this virtual machine because VMware Tools is not currently available.” The vmware.log file for the virtual machine also shows the following:

Attempts to take a quiesced snapshot in a Windows Guest OS fails
Attempts to take a quiesced snapshot after booting a Windows Guest OS fails

After downloading and upgrading VMware Tools version 10.0.9 build-3917699 (reported as version 10249 in the vSphere Web Client), the customer’s problem was resolved. Since the faulty version of VMware Tools was embedded in the customer’s templates used to deploy virtual machines throughout the datacenter, there were a number of VMs needing their VMware Tools upgraded, as well as the templates themselves.

A vCenter Server Appliance (vSphere 6.0 Update 1b) belonging to me was bounced and for some reason was unbootable. The trouble during the boot process begins with /dev/sda3 contains a file system with errors, check forced. At approximately 27% of the way through, the process terminates with fsck failed. Please repair manually and reboot.

p (to enter a root password and continue with additional commands the next step)

e (to edit the boot command)

Append init=/bin/bash (followed by Enter to return to the GRUB menu

b (to start the boot process)

This is where e2fsck -y /dev/sda3 is executed to repair file system errors on /dev/sda3 and allow the VCSA to boot successfully.

When the process above completes, reboot the VCSA and that should be all there is to it.

Update 10/9/17: I ran into a similar issue with VCSA 6.5 Update 1 where the appliance wouldn’t boot and I was left at an emergency mode prompt. In this situation, following the steps above isn’t so straight forward in part due to the Photon OS splash screen and no visibility to the GRUB bootloader (following VMware KB 2081464). In this situation, I executed fsck /dev/sda3 at the emergency mode prompt answering yes to all prompts. After reboot, I found this did not resolve all of the issues. I was able to log in by providing the root password twice. The journalctl command revealed a problem with /dev/mapper/log_vg-log. Next I ran fsck /dev/mapper/log_vg-log again answering yes to all prompts to repair. When that was finished, the appliance was rebooted and came up operational.

I ran into a small problem this week in vCloud Director whereby I was unable to Delete a Network Pool. The error message stated Cannot delete network pool because It is still in use. It went on to list In use items along with a moref identifier. This was not right because I had verified there were no vApps tied to the Network Pool. Furthermore the item listed still in use was a dynamically created dvportgroup which also no longer existed on the vNetwork Distributed Switch in vCenter.

I suspect this situation came about due to running out of available storage space earlier in the week on the Microsoft SQL Server where the vCloud database is hosted. I was performing Network Pool work precisely when that incident occurred and I recall an error message at the time in vCloud Director regarding tempdb.

I tried removing state data from QRTZ tables which I blogged about here a few years ago and has worked for specific instances in the past but unfortunately that was no help here. Searching the VMware Communities turned up sparse conversations about roughly the same problem occurring with Org vDC Networks. In those situations, manually editing the vCloud Director database was required.

An obligatory warning on vCloud database editing. Do as I say, not as I do. Editing the vCloud database should be performed only with the guidance of VMware support. Above all, create a point in time backup of the vCloud database with all vCloud Director cell servers stopped (service vmware-vcd stop). There are a variety of methods in which you can perform this database backup. Use the method that is most familiar to and works for you.

Opening up Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, there are rows in two different tables which I need to delete to fix this. This has to be done in the correct order or else a REFERENCE constraint conflict occurs in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and the statement will be terminated.

So after stopping the vCloud Director services and getting a vcloud database backup…

Step 1: Delete the row referencing the dvportgroup in the [vcloud].[dbo].[network_backing] table:

Back in June, I was extended an offer from PACKT Publishing to review a new VMware book. I’ve got a lot on my plate at the moment but it sounded like an easier read and I appreciated the offer as well as the accommodation of my request for paperback in lieu of electronic copy so I accepted. I finished reading it this past weekend.

The book’s title is VMware vCenter Cookbook and it is PACKT’s latest addition to an already extensive Cookbook series (Interested in Docker, DevOps, or Data Science? There’s Cookbooks for that). Although it was first published in May 2015, the content isn’t quite so new as its coverage includes vSphere 5, and vSphere 5 only with specific focus on vSphere management via vCenter Server as the title of the book indicates. The author is Konstantin Kuminsky and as I mentioned earlier the book is made available in both Kindle and paperback formats.

Admittedly I’m not familiar with PACKT’s other Cookbooks but the formula for this one is much the same as the others I imagine: “Over 65 hands-on recipes to help you efficiently manage your vSphere environment with VMware vCenter”. Each of the recipes ties to a management task that an Administrator of a vSphere environment might need to carry out day to day, weekly, monthly, or perhaps annually. Some of the recipes can also be associated with and aid in design, architecture, and planning although I would not say these are not the main areas of focus. The majority of the text is operational in nature.

The recipes are organized by chapter and while going from one to the next, there may be a correlation, but often there is not. It should be clear at this point it reads like a cookbook, and not a mystery novel (although for review purposes I did read it cover to cover). Find the vCenter how-to recipe you need via the Table of Contents or the index and follow it. Expect no more and no less.

Speaking of the Table of Contents…

Chapter 1: vCenter Basic Tasks and Features

Chapter 2: Increasing Environment Availability

Chapter 3: Increasing Environment Scalability

Chapter 4: Improving Environment Efficiency

Chapter 5: Optimizing Resource Usage

Chapter 6: Basic Administrative Tasks

Chapter 7: Improving Environment Manageability

It’s a desktop reference (or handheld I suppose depending on your preferred consumption model) which walks you through vSphere packaging and licensing on one page, and NUMA architecture on the next. The focus is vCenter Server and perhaps more accurately vSphere management. Fortunately that means there is quite a bit of ESXi coverage as well with management inroads from vCenter, PowerShell, and esxcli. Both Windows and appliance vCenter Server editions are included as well as equally fair coverage of both vSphere legacy client and vSphere web client.

Bottom line: It’s a good book but it would have been better had it been released at least a year or two earlier. Without vSphere 6 coverage, there’s not a lot of mileage left on the odometer. In fairness I will state that many of the recipes will translate identically or closely to vSphere 6, but not all of them. To provide a few examples, VM templates and their best operational practices haven’t changed that much. On the other hand, there are significant differences between FT capabilities and limitations between vSphere 5 and vSphere 6. From a technical perspective, I found it pretty spot on which means the author and/or the reviewers did a fine job.

Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2 has arrived and with it comes compatibility with VMware vSphere 6. The announcement (here’s another) from Veeam came yesterday following the vSphere 6 launch by about six weeks. I was personally notified in a DM via Twitter as promised. Talk about red carpet treatment from an organization which values community – it’s hard to find a better example than Veeam.

Not only is Update 2 vSphere 6 hypervisor aware, but it also supports many of the features baked into vSphere 6 such as VVOLs, VSAN, Cross-vCenter vMotion, tags, FT virtual machines, and Storage Policy-Based Management (SPBM) backup and restore. This is just the short list. Improvements were made other areas such as Microsoft Hyper-V, SQL Server, file level recovery, and Veeam Cloud Connect. For a long and detailed list of enhancements, take a look at the Release Notes for Veeam Backup & Replication 8.0 Update 2 found in Veeam KB 2024.

As with past upgrades, I found the process quick, painless, and no-nonsense. Granted, my lab installation is pretty straightforward. However, be sure to read the release notes if you’re utilizing vSphere tags.

Dell storage customers who have been watching the evolution of Enterprise Manager may be interested in the latest release which was just made available. Aside from adding support for the brand new SCv2000 Series Storage Centers and bundling Java Platform SE 7 Update 67 with the installation of both the Data Collector on Windows and the Client on Windows or Linux (a prerequisite Java installation is no longer required), a Linux client has been introduced for the first time and runs on several Linux operating systems. The Linux client is Java based and has the same look and feel as the Windows based client. Some of the details about this release below.

Although the Enterprise Manager Client for Linux can be installed without a graphical environment, launching and using the client requires the graphical environment. As an example, neither RHEL 6 or RHEL 7 install a graphical environment by default. Overall, installing a graphical environment for both RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 is similar in that it requires a yum repository. However, the procedure is slightly different for each version. There are several resources available on the internet which walk through the process. I’ll highlight a few below.

Log in with root access.

To install a graphical environment for RHEL 6, create a yum repository and install GNOME or KDE by following the procedure here.

To install a graphical environment for RHEL 7, create a yum repository by following this procedure and install GNOME by following the procedure here.

Installing the Enterprise Manager Client is pretty straightforward. Copy the RPM to a temporary directory on the Linux host and use rpm -U to install:

rpm -U dell-emclient-15.1.2-45.x86_64.rpm

Alternatively, download the client from the Enterprise Manager Data Collector using the following syntax as an example:

Once installed, launch the Enterprise Manager Client from the /var/lib/dell/bin/ directory:

cd /var/lib/dell/bin/

./Client

or

/var/lib/dell/bin/Client

We’re rewarded with the Enterprise Manager 2015 R1 Client splash screen. New features are found here to immediately manage SCv2000 Series Storage Centers (the SCv2000 Series is the first Storage Center whereby the web based management console has been retired).

Once logged in, it’s business as usual in a familiar UI.

Dell, and before it Compellent, has long since offered a variety of options and integrations to manage Storage Center as well as popular platforms and applications. The new Enterprise Manager Client for Linux extends that list of management methods available.